How to sell to Heads of Marketing at Education companies
Heads of Marketing in education companies are primarily measured on student enrollment growth. They respond to outreach that clearly connects marketing initiatives to tangible enrollment increases, especially those that leverage digital channels. Demonstrating a clear understanding of their enrollment funnel and the specific challenges they face in attracting students will capture their attention.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 554 education company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- decreasing student enrollment
- ineffective digital campaigns
- budget constraints
- high competition for student attention
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent enrollment drops
Use data from education industry reports or internal analytics to find schools that have reported a decrease in student enrollment this year. These schools may be more open to discussing new marketing strategies to reverse this trend.
- 02
Highlight specific digital marketing challenges
Research common digital marketing hurdles in the education sector, such as low conversion rates from online campaigns. Tailor your outreach to address these issues, showing how your insights can help improve their current strategies.
- 03
Connect with decision-makers during budget planning
Reach out to marketing heads during Q4 when they are planning their budgets for the next academic year. This is a critical time for them to consider new initiatives, making them more receptive to discussions about innovative marketing tools.
- 04
Address common objections about ROI
Anticipate objections regarding the return on investment for new marketing initiatives. Prepare case studies or examples of how similar institutions achieved measurable enrollment growth through targeted campaigns, making your outreach more compelling.
- 05
Follow up post-engagement events
After education conferences or webinars, send a personalized email referencing a specific session that relates to their challenges. This shows you are engaged with their industry and provides a natural segue to discuss their current marketing strategies.
Can education companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 554 education companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 16.3% of 1–10-person companies against 80.2% of the largest — 64 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Boosting your enrollment numbers
- Tackling digital marketing challenges
- Strategies for competitive edge
Questions
- Why do heads of marketing in education ignore outreach about new tools?
- They often receive numerous pitches and may prioritize immediate needs over new tools. If the outreach doesn’t clearly relate to their current challenges, such as enrollment drops or budget constraints, it can easily be overlooked.
- What marketing trends are heads of marketing in education currently focused on?
- Many are focusing on personalization in marketing campaigns, leveraging data analytics to target prospective students more effectively, and enhancing their online presence to stand out in a crowded market.
- How can I better understand the needs of education marketing leaders?
- Engage with industry-specific content, attend education conferences, and participate in relevant webinars. This will help you gain insights into their current challenges and priorities, allowing for more targeted outreach.
- What metrics do heads of marketing in education prioritize?
- They typically focus on metrics such as student enrollment growth, conversion rates from inquiries to enrollments, and the effectiveness of different marketing channels. Understanding these metrics can help tailor your approach to their needs.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
Try it on your site